


Five Boys Ennis Del Mar Never Kissed (and one that he did)

by gwyllion



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-29
Updated: 2011-11-29
Packaged: 2017-12-05 09:51:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyllion/pseuds/gwyllion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was written for the Five Things Challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Boys Ennis Del Mar Never Kissed (and one that he did)

1  
Larry lived on the ranch closest to the Del Mars, a long walk in a snowstorm, or an easy bike ride in the autumn heat. Larry’s mom made lemonade, poured it into tall glasses for Joey and Ennis.

K.E. would sometimes make the trip across the furrowed fields to drag Ennis back to the ranch when it was time for dinner.

“When I grow up,” Larry said. “I want to be one of those guys who lead the marching band in the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Ennis always thought it strange.

Larry moved to Amsterdam, and Ennis never saw him again.

 

2  
Sam was the only kid in all of Sage to take piano lessons. During the annual Christmas Pageant, he sat on the hard wooden bench in Mrs. Gordon’s class, playing Silent Night while the other kids sang along, under penalty of having their hand slapped by the rattan-wielding Mr. McHugh.

Some say his family moved back east when his daddy got offered a job at a big corporation in Pennsylvania.

A girl Ennis knew tried writing to him once, but never heard back.

Ennis wondered if he was abandoned on the way there, sheet music scattered by the highway wind.

 

3  
Walter played with girls. Not dolls or jump-rope or kitchen, but forts and hide-and-seek, and tag. The girls loved having a brother they could boss around, and Walter could always be counted on to play fair.

He went away to college. Ennis wasn’t sure where or why.

The last Ennis knew, Walter had become the CEO of a company in New Orleans, a place Ennis had only seen when his finger traced the Mississippi River on a map.

When Walter aged into his mid-thirties, he stopped coming back to visit his folks in during the holidays. 

Nobody ever mentioned why.

 

4  
Phil was quick to offer a friendly smile or help to a neighbor in need. He ran away to San Francisco before Ennis entered High School, taking his friendship with him.

Ennis watched his moustache grow fuller and darker over the years.

He never married, nor had any children, something that Ennis’s mother called a shame.

His folks prayed for him in the same church where the Del Mars attended Sunday Services.

And when the time came, still too soon at a young age, Mike was buried in the same lonely graveyard, a few grassy steps away from Ennis’s father.

 

5  
Dave sat at the bar when Ennis walked in, minding his own business for a change. Ennis dropped a pair of dimes into the jukebox and took the only vacant barstool. He kept his hat on, eyes straight ahead.

“Good tune,” Dave said.

Ennis slugged back a gulp of brew, eyebrows knitted together so hard that it hurt. He left his dollar on the bar and got out of there as fast as he could.

“He’s been in a fight,” the nurse told Dave’s parents. “You’d best be prepared for the worst. It’s going to be a long road ahead.”

 

+1  
Ennis had waited all day for Jack to arrive. Empties covered every flat surface of the cluttered living room. Spent cigarette butts piled one onto the other in a cheap glass ashtray.

Ignoring his wife, he paced by the window, flicking his lighter, on off, on off.

The rumble of an engine, another false alarm. Heart beating so fast, the girls might hear.

Finally the truck, impossibly distant at first, but getting closer until it slammed into Ennis’s driveway.

Ennis’s heart screamed “Him, him, him!”

“Jack Fucking Twist,” he tried to stay cool.

And we all know what happened next.


End file.
